


among the ruins, you might find me

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Category: From Paris with Love (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Comforting Wax, Established Relationship, Family, Flashbacks, Friendship, Hurt Reece, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Or Is It?, Original Character(s), Partners to Lovers, Reunions, Romance, Separations, Temporary Amnesia, Tragedy, Trope Bingo Round 13, Zombies, h/c_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: Reece supposes there’s a certain poetry in the slow fading of an already wasted Earth.





	among the ruins, you might find me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Trope Bingo](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/37096.html) for the prompt AU: Apocalypse. 
> 
> Also written for [h/c_bingo](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/34933.html) for the prompt WILD CARD (Amnesia). 
> 
> **Soundtrack:** I like to think of Vik’s ‘Farewell’ as the soundtrack for this; it’s a lovely little instrumental [piece](https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IT3SHHd_28).

He first wakes in darkness, grasping in its impenetrable depths for a light switch that fails to turn on, a window ledge that never appears. He searches the walls, the cracked tiles, his memory with more holes than logic for such a long time before he graces himself with a reprieve. Reece sinks back against the nearest wall and rests there, blinking though there is no need for it; breathing in the stale, horrendously hot air; attempting to remember where he is, what he was doing before this, who he is.

It doesn’t take him long before he needs to escape his terrifyingly blank head.

He sits up again, stands on unfamiliar legs and searches more frantically now. He finds a crack, tests it with his fingers before fumbling for a handle; it rests in his hand a moment later, a solid, comforting weight that he turns without thought.

The darkness that greets him is a bit less harsh, a tad less all-consuming, light filtering in from somewhere far off. Reece begins to move, two steps before his heart freezes in his chest at intrusive sounds: scrabbling, banging and noises he cannot describe.

There is a fear in his heart that he cannot name.

He blindly steps backward and closes the door quietly, only one word resting on his tongue.

Wax.

For now without meaning.

* * *

Reece can’t contemplate how much time passes until he tries again.

Eventually, the sounds of the world outside cease, leading him to venture out into the light provided by a sole window. He is on edge for any sound, any movement as he searches his small, many roomed home for any indication of how long he has been here. There are stray clothes littered here and there, several cans of food, essentials such as matches and a flashlight and batteries and a pocket knife.

Bullets without a gun.

Empty frames without photographs.

Mirrors that hold trapped a face which Reece fails to recognize.

He will spend nine more nights here, sparingly though still unavoidably quickly going through most of his food supply. He finds no need to move, no need to venture outside… yet.

There will be a time for it, a time when Reece will instinctively know. For now, he listens and watches outside the lone, exposed window and whispers Wax over and over again like a mantra, like it is his name even though he knows it is not.

Like the world still rotates on its axis, still persists outside his space because of that word.

* * *

He supposes there’s a certain poetry in the slow fading of an already wasted Earth.

The sun is harsh as it pounds his back, the insects silent as if in protest, the world around him overgrown and treacherous and seeming to hold a breath, waiting until it is allowed to implode and take him along with it and yet…

There is some beauty in it, in the madness he knows lingers at the very edges he must venture to, in the far reaches of the sun and the distant recesses of security. There is poignancy in the irrepressible silence, meaning in the way his stomach rumbles in agony, a permanency in how the Earth refuses to part for him. He must fight through it, physically and mentally and without hesitation. He must fight simply to be here, without knowing why he wishes to be.

He would turn around, crawl back inside his safe space but that he has already waited too long. He is nearly out of food and even then he must know, must know what has happened.

Because he knows that the world is not what it once was. It is a shift in the air, the slow disintegration of his surroundings. It is as if Mother Nature herself is whispering in his ear, warning him, speaking  _this is the world you’ve forgotten. Remember. _

He cannot.

The first sign of life he comes across is trapped in the ruins of a wire fence. It struggles and strains without thought and without awareness of its own pain, that much is apparent given the dark patches of dirty blood everywhere Reece peers. It gurgles as if it cannot scream, reaches out with mangled hands as if Reece is the sole reason for its existence. It looks nothing like that face in the mirror four days before.

That’s when Reece learns to run.

* * *

The second thing he learns is to remember.

_He’s hunched over a desk too small for the dorm room, pouring over textbook after textbook, classical music drifting lazily in the background and helping him concentrate, every hour no more than minutes. _ He remembers books: pulling them from shelves, spilled out over his bed, pages creased and stained and dog-eared, words overflowing out onto carefully constructed essays, shifting and re-shifting themselves to establish further meaning. 

_His eyes are trained on a board before him, every shot hitting its mark, every breath small and perfect and infinite, the world pushed far behind him, waiting for him to catch up, to be spun and dissected and made small and normal. _ He remembers that later, how no amount of practice had prepared him for actually being out there, firing round after round and watching them make impact, practically hearing them compromise flesh and shatter bone. No amount of practice could have prepared him for the chase, for the fire emanating from his lungs and the way his throat closes up, for the ringing in his ears and the sickening wave of guilt overtaking a satisfaction that should have been his instead. 

_He is stiff and sore and lost until there is a shout from behind him. With that one word, everything in him pulls taut and to attention, a startling flicker of lightning raging across his consciousness, leaving relief and certainty and joy in its wake as he is found. _

He remembers that the person cupped in his soul is Wax.

Reece doesn’t, however, remember how to survive.

Yet he survives regardless. During the long nights he finds shelter in small, rundown places, but as sure as the days stretch out languidly before him so do his legs as they unendingly walk. He steps uncertainly into decaying fields and weaves through tangled forests and treads lightly upon disturbed, eroding soil, the latter soft as it sifts in-between his fingers like words washed away from pages and memories scrubbed away from a helpless consciousness. His arms are scratched from vines and his ankle ticks an unsteady albeit healing beat from having been twisted by a hidden tree root, though it is from these walks that he remembers all these things.

Memory, even with meaning, is distraction.

* * *

Life has begun to take too much energy. It is fleeting, stripping Reece out of this world day-by-day. Every breath has become a solid trial, every moment a binding tribulation.

And every moment that he cannot remember Wax’s face he is restless, impulsive, careless.

Words call out from behind, beckoning him, but Reece perhaps knows before he even turns that they are no more.

Something has latched onto his back and he struggles, bucks, flees senselessly, consciousness flickering in and out, inevitably fading even as sharp spikes of cruelty sink into his upper back, into the soft flesh of his shoulder. Something is torn from him then, something vital, and Reece manages to dislodge whatever has been clinging to him, bashing it over and over with something hard and rough and all the while with unseeing eyes.

He falls back then, shifts, feels his way into his body again, aching and sensitive now, only to find that he is made up of nothing more than warm liquid, no weight to him, making it difficult to walk, to remain standing, even to run. He stumbles, falls, crawls, knees bearing most of his leftover weight as he rises like a crumbling tower.

The earth cackles beneath his torn feet as he stands up on new and shaky legs, grasping a tree branch for balance. He’s launched back into his body fully and mercilessly, arm and back throbbing in warning, blood appearing through the cracks, enough blood that there’s no point in attempting to wipe it away or cover it up. It is how the world has left its mark upon him.

Reece pushes on, as he always does because there must be someone else out there.

And deep down in his bones, within his very marrow, he knows exactly who that someone is.

* * *

There are cities long-deserted and even longer bereft of food, yet they still manage to serve as a beacon.

There are hands inside Reece, pushing him forward and back and this way and that, chest tight with their desperate straining, eyes watering from an exhaustion which begets no reprieve, only a humanity which he is still trying to stitch slowly around himself, like a warm and capable skin, a security blanket, a shield from the elements and from nature’s cruel intentions to hold his prior life just barely out of his reach, as if the very fact he can never have it back leeches that life - that life that was his and that should have stayed his and that is still his to rightfully possess, even if only in melancholic memory - of all its meaning.

He remembers that he had spent most of his life in cities, in glamorous and in unsavory places, in back alleys and little cafes and cockroach infested apartments and imposing buildings. The stink of trash and of cigarette smoke and of things he knows but cannot name, the exhaust in his eyes and the blood coating his hands and the shout of Wax or of his gun never far off.

The world is a silent prison now, its cold bars a vice holding his jaw shut, its small space encompassing a wave of claustrophobia.

And Reece feels he is almost at the end of it.

The beacon that Reece cannot name - can only feel pushing back all the vestiges of a burning pain slowly being numbed away - eventually leads him to civilization. He hovers out of sight, tucked against crumbling brick walls, ever-listening and always watching. That is when he hears her speak, rough and authoritative and low, the woman with raven black hair and too many knives strapped to her belt: “Wax will want us to check it out regardless. Even if…” Reece tunes her out, her other words serving no purpose to him.

Wax. The sole word he’s been breathing all these months.

And it all comes back in a nauseating, skin-squeezing, blood curdling rush.

* * *

“State your name and your business. You’ve got four seconds before I shoot.”

Is this all his life is worth: four seconds? So be it. “I’m looking for Wax.”

Something flickers in the woman’s eyes and the hand holding her gun slips down, only slightly, enough for Reece to breathe again. If this is his Wax then he’s close, close enough to come alive again. “How do you know Wax?”

Reece licks his lips, surer of these words than of anything else. “He was my partner.”

“Oh Jesus.”

The gun is lowered, safety clicked back on. The man; however, is glaring daggers into Reece, the tip of his own weapon of choice - a filthy, wickedly sharp blade - pressing tightly into Reece’s abdomen, nearly drawing blood. “What’s your name, kid?”

It’s a good thing he now knows that too. “Reece.”

That knife, belonging to a person now wide-eyed and shell-shocked, inch by trembling inch retreats. “My God, we’ve been lookin’ for your ass a long time. You’re James Reece?” And Reece lowers his gaze in response.

“Sylas, I don’t think…”

Apparently, the man already knows her train of thought. “It’s been a damn long time, Clara. If we don’t tell Wax about ‘im, he’ll have both our heads.”

“I know, Sylas, I just…,” she motions to Reece’s shoulder and the man takes in her concern piece-by-piece and makes it his own. He takes a step back, fearful and disgusted. Reece doesn’t mind, can’t care, only wants Wax. “How long has it been since you’ve been bit?” The woman named Clara demands.

Not too long now.

“Thought his eyes were glazed over with the fever. Look, kid, we’re gonna take you to Wax, if that’s what you want.” Clara looks about ready to protest. “But if you don’t want Wax to see you like this, we get that too.” Clearly, he doesn’t prefer this option, for he adds, “You have to understand though, kid…” Reece wishes he would stop calling him that. “Your partner, he’s never given up on you. He’s dragged us all over this godforsaken planet for years, even when there’s been no word or sign of you. That’s… you bet your ass that’s dedication.”

He remembers that about Wax, how he had never let one man or twenty stand in his way; the number and the distance made no difference. If Reece had remembered, he would have looked for Wax all this time too. If he had remembered…

“Please,” he speaks. “I need to see Wax.”

Before it’s too late.

* * *

Reece hardly recognizes him with a thinning head of hair and a thick, dark beard, but he’d know that voice and those eyes anywhere. Wax is running to him and then his arms are as warm and as wide as Reece remembers. He reeks of a decaying earth and of a years long strain and as if he is seeped in stagnant, emotional pain and Reece allows his once partner to hold him tight because he cannot. He is weak and slipping, mind wandering to places he wants to go to.

_Reece laughing at something Wax had just said, the most comfortable joy as Wax laughs along with him, clapping Reece’s back without a beat as he starts choking on his coffee, as the world becomes this bright, gloriously lit up place, as each case pulls Reece deeper and deeper into Wax’s world of crime and terrorism and yet loyalty and friendship. _

_Wax on his knees, telling Reece how he really feels, Reece barely awake and blinking furiously through the fog in his brain and stunned, wincing at the sharp twinge of pain at his right hip and calming when careful fingers soothe the swollen skin, when a demanding mouth tears asunder Reece’s niggling doubts. _

_A gun pointed directly at Wax’s head and Reece pulling the trigger at the threat without thought, watching the man slump forward, ignoring Wax’s careful though intrusive physical assessment because they’re both alive and all is well. _

_The explosions and the fire engulfing the city and then the blow on the back of his head, Wax being dragged away, screaming his name, the name he never should have forgotten in the first place. Pain. Confusion. Darkness. _

_He never wanted to live, to survive in a world without Wax anyway. _

And there is the sickness again, bubbling up inside his veins, choking out every happy memory from childhood all the way up to the last time he had seen Wax. The gears in his head click and whirl, spluttering to life and then ceasing, bringing with every movement a wave of pain and a flicker of crippled memory. Before the fires… “We were… chasing a terrorist cell?”

Wax’s voice is like a dream now, too good to be real. “That was two whole years ago.”

“I was sleeping… I think.” Or he hadn’t, or it was mere memory loss and he drifted through all those days and all those weeks and all those months… “I can’t remember, Wax,” he apologizes, though it is not enough.

“It doesn’t matter, Reese cup. I’ve found you now.” A pause, a  _long _ pause that Reece allows his once partner. A pause to worry over Reece’s neck, to palpitate his shoulder and back, to expose the infected teeth marks and suck in a breath that somehow sounds more broken than Reece feels. 

No matter, that will come.

Arms close around him, lifting him up, cradling him and not pulling back in fear. “It’s okay, Reece. I have you. It’s okay, baby…”  _More time more time more time. We should have had more time…_

Yet the world hardly listens to senseless pleas.

“Thank you… for not giving up on me.” Wax laughs then, sharp, high-pitched and amazed; or rather, an echo of him does.  _There’s the sharp click of a gun being reloaded, Reece panting, finally having caught up, Wax laughing at his own joke and the sun… the sun beating down on Reece, making him sweat, his throat raw and his inability not to laugh irritating. Regardless, that’s the kind of person Wax is: infectious, impossible not to give into. ‘You did good back there, pard, real good.’ It wasn’t the first time he had preened under Wax’s attention, yet he couldn’t remember if it had been the last…_

The silence is deafening now, the pain all-consuming. And there is no more time for pauses, for measured breaths and stuttered heartbeats and weeks worth of willpower, all of which have evaporated like smoke into a vast expanse of sky. Like a camera, Reece shutters and clicks off. He fades and becomes lost, lost enough to never find his way back.

He knows the world follows soon after.

* * *

Reece wakes in sunshine, in a body he can languidly stretch and feel, all the aches and twinges, all the limbs in working order, entirely human, entirely himself again.

And Wax is there, taking up most of their space, real and glorious and beaming, an unmovable mountain.

It’s been a long time since Reece believed in the validity of happy endings.

**FIN**

**Author's Note:**

> **Endnote:** This originally didn’t have the last three sentences, but as much as I tried to keep it a tragic ending, I just couldn’t with these two. I leave the ending up to you, reader: a miracle or heaven, an illusion or something else entirely.


End file.
